It's Rough Out There

[S]ometimes it takes a new angle of vision to make you see just how
difficult things are. My “aha” moment came over the weekend, when I
read a recent survey that tracked the fate of a large sample of individuals who were unemployed as of last August. Here a summary:

Of the 908-person sample, 67 percent remained unemployed but were
still looking for work, and an additional 12 percent had given up and
dropped out of the labor force. Only 21 percent had found jobs (only 13
percent full-time) and were currently employed. A stunning 28 percent
of the newly reemployed had been looking for work for more than one
year, and 6 percent for more than two years. Fifty-five percent
accepted a pay cut in their new jobs; 13 percent took a cut larger than
one-third of their previous salary.